I'm curious as to Tamriel lore concerning the afterlife. If anybody can give me background information about this topic that'd be great because any information passed on to me is going to be incorporated in a mod I'm building.

Thanks.

MK states in http://til.gamingsource.net/obscure_text/5th_era_loveletter.shtml that: "Death results in reappropriation of spirit towards its aligned AE, either to the god-planet Aedra or the Principalities of Oblivion. Vehk's name for this transaction, mentioned above, is 'lunar currency'. Mundus to Mortal Death: centerpoint to the soon recycled."

______The Word Merchant of Julianos

Besides the recycling of souls, there is also other belief's.

The Dunmer believe they go to the halls of Azura.
The Nords believe they go to a castle (forgot the name), where Shor rules.
The imperials go to Aetherius.

Well i'm don't know much about the afterlife, so this might not be all correct.

Would that be Sovngarde for the Nords? Though from what i hear, they only go there if they die in battle.

Valhalla by any other name...

But none of that actually contradicts the Loveletter.

But it is from real world not from TES...

Sovngarde was mentioned in a "Bloodmoon" quest, with the spirit of a Nord telling the player that he had succeeded in reaching it.

I think myself that there are too many different types of afterlife mentioned in TES, but I usually go with the "going to your aligned AE" explanation.

Arkay is the God of the cycle of life and death. We're born from the dreamsleeve and return to it on death in an endless cycle that is always new.

Birth:


Mortals leave the dreaming-sleeve of birth, without any divinity (unmantled) safe for the symbiosis with the special divinity of Nirn (our mother, Mankar wan't to destroy Nirn).


This special divinity comes back in the intercept, Red Mountain (tower) holds Lorkhan's Heart (stone). Lorkhan's heart is also called the divine spark, our shared divinity. As such, we already much like the Daedra, we're separate parts of a larger divinity.

Death:

When people from different cultures all believe in an afterlife and all seem to get exactly what they expect, it is reasonable to assume that their experiences are influenced by their expectations. The Nords believe they go to a place called Sovngarde which can be translated as to a meaning that means as much as the Dreamsleeve, the sleep-enclosure. So we're already back the start.



This shouldn't be read as some Heaven and Hell afterlife were people who've done enough bad things end up in Oblivion. The AE literally is a connector and in the sermons it is often used as: "AYEM AE VEHK AE SETH", Almelexia and Vivec and Sotha Sil, Almsivi.

This connection is the soul. Normally, when a person is killed he experiences afterlife, when a Daedra is slain he experiences the void. A soul trap can force the soul to remain connected to a soulgem and a Necromancer can call back souls and force them to animate a body again.
Ghosts can return out of their free will if they have something that binds them, but often you'll see that they've already started to disintegrate and are starting to lose their memories and thoughts while they're being mangled and stripped from their identity in the dreamsleeve.

As I've already shown above, mortals are born from the dreamsleeve, it's their to their divinity so their allinged AE goes to Mundus and while the God planets of the Aedra are often interpreted as Aetherius, they are part of Mundus, they are the gift limbs.

It's also what allows Mankar Camoran to pick up his followers in his Paradise, they've given up Mundus ("destroy her forever") and become part of Mehrunes Dagon ("enter the demesne of Lord Dagon")

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For more:

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=568807&st=0&p=8228887&#entry8228887
http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=104313
http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=557966

Similar topic:

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=646953&st=0&p=9389259&hl=sovngarde%20dreamsleeve&#entry9389259

Proweler, I dub thee "Threadkiller"! I mean, what else is there to debate after you answer it all? Good job, buddy. :goodjob:

Do souls stay specific to one race during recyclization, or maybe even into that of a lesser daedra? Oh, the possibilities...

Altmer: "Please don't kill me sir, my skin is so pretty and smooth."

Sir: Die! *whack*

FWOOOOOOP

Previously Altmer: "Hey, where'd my pretty skin go?"

Dagon: "Oh, so you're the new clanfear 'round here, eh?"

Another question is whether a soul can change from black to white (or vice versa) upon recycling?

Oh, now THAT would be funny

You don't write a standard plea after the 3th or 4th?



That's more complicated.

Considering souls go back to their alligned AE unless specifically changed, its not possible for a mortal to become a Daedra or a Daedra to become a mortal.

Considering that when a Daedra dies, it does not lose his identity it's not possible for a Daedra to become something other then what he was before.
Mundus is different in this respect considering that when a Mortal dies he does not remember or retains anything. It's also constructed to be constantly changing so I would assume that when a spirit dies, it just gets all mashed up with all the other spirits and a scoop is taken out again to form a new person or creature.

I presume this is a very slow process though considering Nercomancers can call back spirits to animate a corpse and we can still have a somewhat coherent talk with people like Pelinal (they seem to be outside of time though).

Why do I get the feeling that I should know what that means? :poke:

Sovngarde is also mentioned in TES4, when a Nord enemy taunts another Nord (such as the Player). "I'm gonna send your soul straight to Sovngarde!"

What about ghosts? Just what are ghosts in the TES universe? Souls that have lost their mortal coils and haven't gone back to the Big Pot O' Souls In The Sky yet? Why do some of them (like the dead Knights of The Nine or the Sancre Tor Blades or the Failed Incarnates) have full retention of their mental faculties after death?

I spoke about the Valhalla, but yes it is similar.

Well, if the Nerevarine truly carries the soul that was once Indoril Nerevar, then no, because the Nerevarine's race is entirely dependent on the Player's choice.

Yep, something like that...

Purpose maybe...

Zurin bound them there, I suppose Azura did the same with the failed incarnates albeit more gentle.



Purpose is more poetic though.

Considering this, it makes me wonder why there arent powerful wizard communities that preserve their 'ancient masters' in the form of animunculi, by binding the soul of the deceased into a new artificial coporiation.

I guess nobody has been successful in the creation of a suitable mobile container....

(Sensory deprivation is a known cause of mental breakdown, and is often employed as a form of torture. being bound into a form that EG, cannot taste, touch, or smell could be seen as torture. For this reason, a suitable container would need to be able to experience all of the normal senses, without fault. Given the level of technical knowledge adherant in the TES universe, I suppose this could be seen as the reason why there arent any 10,000 year old wizards walking around in artificial bodies.)

You mean a Lich?

A lich is a KIND of artificial construct I suppose... but it has flaws.

It cannot intrinsically heal damage-- or, if it can, it requires to do so through some magickal process.

It cant eat food, nor drink liquids. (If you like a big juicy steak with red wine, and garlic tossed vegitables-- you are just SOL if you become a lich.)

It is visually frightening, which reduces the lich's ability to socialize.

It has no genital components, rendering any kind of intimacy other than platonic love totally impotent.

(and the list goes on....)


A truely viable construct would be able to engage in all of those activities, as it would have mechanisms in place explicitly for them.

One reason that occurs to me is that most people of Tamriel would have a bias against technology; possibly seeing the Dwemer ruins and the destruction of that people as a warning. Easier to rely on their tradition of magicka.

I got that feeling too, considering the ruins of Vvardenfell are filled with intriguing stuff, yet you don't see like, what, three people studying it? Or even applying it? Although it makes sense there since the Dunmer think the Dwemer were all blasphemous and what not.

EDIT: to, too two, sheesh, stupid English language.